It was vetted and accorded utility model protection by the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) under the Harare protocol and registered by the Uganda Registration Services Bureau in 2017.
[3] The first janzi was created in 2015 and it was recognized as an instrument and patented by ARIPO and registered by the Ugandan government in 2017.
[4] Apart from Sswewa Ssewa and the Janzi Band, the instrument has been used by other folk and world musicians, featuring in live performances by Feridah Rose in Denmark and Giovanni Kiyingi.
The inventor used guitar pegs instead of nails as used in the traditional stringed instrument of northwestern Uganda, the adungu.
[6] "I had to think of how better and modern I wanted it to look like, so I decided to use wood entirely which would give me a distinctive sound that is quite different from the usual Adungu" (Ssewa).